awe, humility, hope and a few other things I might notice

Monthly Archives: March 2014

It has come to my attention that people are wearing tutus while running and that femmephobia might somehow be involved. A thoroughly intelligent discussion ensued and I was intrigued. Unfamiliar with the term, I initially thought femmephobia might describe my fear of pink feather boas being placed on me at workplace special occasions. I was confronted with this fear many times when I worked at an organization where the women outnumbered the men 8 to 1 and the managers were struggling for team-building activities. I sometimes enjoy wearing more romantic than utilitarian styles and smile at the occasional costume as motivator but a pink feather boa may as well be a meat dress on my very vegetarian shoulders.

Femmephobia has been described as the devaluation, fear and hatred of the feminine. I don’t think it is femmephobist to not want to be surrounded by costumes and pink everything. There are individuals who don the pretty party with the most sincere intentions, but most companies and media coverage distort the image in a way that is demeaning to the wearer and their cause by highlighting the sartorial sensationalism rather than the reason for wearing it. We have all read countless articles about people doing something out-of-the-ordinary for a charity from cutting their hair to fasting, to wearing every kind of accessory possible during an athletic event (all of which are rather too close for comfort on the misogynist sadistic side for my taste) with precious little article space dedicated to the actual social, medical or other problem this act was trying to benefit. So, while the tutu might inspire the crowd to cheer for you, are they cheering for you or for the tutu? The tutus and the pink also hint of consumerist fad, and we know that national chains and social media companies profit more than charity from that. Meat dress and the once salmon colored ribbon as cases in point.

Essentially the media follows the entertainment value and often I suspect, so do the participants. What’s more, hyper-feminizing anything does not disentangle us from the misogyny against our fundamental femaleness. Instead, media coverage tends to utilize jujutsu techniques to throw the feminine and many actual women once more into the ditch, and soon enough people will toss their tutus and their feather boas into the back of the closet and forget why they ever bought them in the first place.

This is just about the most fun I have had in a while. Blame it on cabin fever- the fact that I haven’t been having much play type of fun and that this little game was too much for me to resist. See The Daily Show March 24 for details.

I love Free to Be You and Me and still find it wonderful in its charming and hokey way, so no offense intended.